One of the few large items that we bought online was our bedframe and mattress, and tonight, we(Aaron) put it together! Yes, Aaron got this whole many-pieced beastie together almost completely on his own, as I was getting the bedroom curtains installed.

I would saw we both did a great job! 🙂

With the curtains up, I was also able to realize the image I had gotten in my head from the very moment I set eyes on these adorable star lights. They are LEDs, like many of the other lights in our house now, and give a lovely glow to the room.

Only thing left was to bring in the mattress and make the bed! It has been years since I had a bed I could walk around to make, instead of crawling(or dramatically break-rolling) back and forth across to make(a lifetime of loft beds and RVing will make you appreciate easy bed-making)

We are getting so close! I am really starting to see Avako as a house versus “the building”, which is very exciting! Today we finally took the paper off of Aaron’s main desk so we could get him set up with a workplace.

It is amazing how finished this end of the building looks now! Add a rug, a chair, and some desk “toppings” and voila 🙂

Aaron was thrilled to have a full desk again! This means that he has space to set up dual monitors and still have room for text books left over 🙂

Triangle also approves! He has decided that under Aaron’s desk can be a very good place to sleep when he is not running up and down the length of the building.

Once of the last things between us and moving is are some curtains for our gigantic windows!

While at IKEA last my mom and I saw a really nifty curtain system that utilized flat panels on a sliding track instead of or in addition to the more standard gathering curtain style. We both loved the look and I particularly appreciated the fact that this style made for a slimmer profile, which in a small space means a lot!

Since Aaron was busy on his own project, I jumped right in and pretended to be tall.

After only a little bit of finagling, I had the curtain track and two curtain panels up!

Since these are IKEA products, the panels all had to be put together by cutting fabric or panel stock(also sold by IKEA) to your desired length and then attaching the bar hardware to either end. Then, slide into the track and voila! I only have 2 of the panels finished at the moment, but will have the other 4 done soon.

UPDATE! I have the other panels done now, so our window can be fully closed 🙂

Now that we have the top walkways of the cat walk done, we need a way for Triangle to get up to them!

After a lot of research and some Pinterest frustration, we settled on a zig zag slanted walkway design.

We used a narrower version of the same pre-made shelf boards that worked so well for the overhead shelves for the tracks. Since no angle bracket we could find had the angle we needed, we went with sturdy door hinges to create whatever angle we needed!

This build was surprisingly easy once we got into a rhythm with measuring, cutting, and fastening. It also looks really cool!

Triangle liked it, but between the steep angle and slippery surface, he couldn’t go up very well and mostly settled for sitting on the turning platforms.

Despite the challenge, he did manage to get to the top to continue exploring the walkways!

To make climbing easy for him we decided to carpet the zig zag. It took every clamp we had available!

You can see that we picked a semi-industrial ridged carpet for traction as well as a scratching post-type surface(Triangle is a front foot declaw who likes to scratch his toes on nubby things)

Once the carpet was on, there was no stopping him!

He successfully found Aaron for some much needed ear scratches after his long journey 😉

Hand-me-downs can be awesome! Today we installed both the washer/dryer and the refrigerator that had previously belonged to my family. My mom was very happy for the excuse to get a new washing machine that would handle my brothers judo gi better!

The refrigerator was fairly straightforward to put in place, just had to decide which way the doors should open!

Aaron and I were quite proud of how nice the short wall ended up looking with the fridge in place.

The washer/dryer were a bit trickier to move, since we had to do-si-do to get the washer up and in place before the dryer, which of course was on top of the washer!

We even remembered to drain the line before we brought it inside!

Everything fit! We do sorta wish that we had reversed the positions of the washer/dryer with the water heater, but it is not bad and now there is a magnetic surface available.

I just couldn’t resist letting my creativity loose, what with this big white canvas staring back at me. When we went to Ikea, I snagged two different sets of wall decals to adorn our stacking units with.